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As the importance of allergic disorders such as atopic dermatitis and allergic asthma, research on potential drug candidates becomes more necessary. Mast cells play an important role as initiators of allergic responses through the release of histamine; therefore, they should be the target of pharmaceutical development for the management of allergic inflammation. In our previous study, anti-allergic effect of extracts of Amomum xanthioides was demonstrated. To further investigate improved candidates, 1,2,4,5-tetramethoxybenzene (TMB) was isolated from methanol extracts of A. xanthioides. TMB dose-dependently attenuated the degranulation of mast cells without cytotoxicity by inhibiting calcium influx. TMB decreased the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin (IL)-4 at both the transcriptional and translational levels. Increased expression of these cytokines was caused by translocation of nuclear factor-κB into the nucleus, and it was hindered by suppressing activation of IκB kinase complex. To confirm the effect of TMB in vivo, the ovalbumin (OVA)-induced active systemic anaphylaxis (ASA) and IgE-mediated passive cutaneous anaphylaxis (PCA) models were used. In the ASA model, hypothermia was decreased by oral administration of TMB, which attenuated serum histamine, OVA-specific IgE, and IL-4 levels. Increased pigmentation of Evans blue was reduced by TMB in a dose-dependent manner in the PCA model. Our results suggest that TMB is a possible therapeutic candidate for allergic inflammatory diseases that acts through the inhibition of mast cell degranulation and expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Here we present ORF-selector ESPRIT, a 9-fold enhanced version of our technology for screening incremental truncation libraries to identify soluble high yielding constructs of challenging proteins. Gene fragments are truncated at both termini to access internal domains and the resulting reading frame problem is addressed by an unbiased, intein-based open reading frame selection yielding only in-frame DNA inserts. This enriched library is then subcloned into a standard high-level expression plasmid where tens of thousands of constructs can be assayed in a two-step process using colony- and liquid-handling robots to isolate rare highly expressing clones useful for production of multi milligram quantities of purifiable proteins. The p85α protein was used to benchmark the system resulting in isolation of all known domains, either alone or in tandem. The human kinase IKK1 was then screened resulting in purification of a predicted internal domain. This strategy provides an integrated, facile route to produce soluble proteins from challenging and poorly understood target genes at quantities compatible with structural biology, screening applications and immunisation studies. The high genetic diversity that can be sampled opens the way to study more diverse systems including multisubunit complexes., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Biomedical research has undergone a major shift in emphasis over the past decade from characterizing the genomes of organisms to characterizing their proteomes. The high-throughput approaches that were successfully applied to sequencing of genomes, such as miniaturization and automation, have been adapted for high-throughput cloning and protein production. High-throughput platforms allow for a multi-construct, multi-parallel approach to expression optimization and construct evaluation. We describe here a series of baculovirus transfer and expression vectors that contain ligation-independent cloning regions originally designed for use in high-throughput Escherichia coli expression evaluation. These new vectors allow for parallel cloning of the same gene construct into a variety of baculovirus or E. coli expression vectors. A high-throughput platform for construct expression evaluation in baculovirus-infected insect cells was developed to utilize these vectors. Data from baculovirus infection expression trials for multiple constructs of two target protein systems relevant to the study of human diseases are presented. The target proteins exhibit a wide variation in behavior and illustrate the benefit of investigating multiple cell types, fusion partners and secretion signals in optimization of constructs and conditions for eukaryotic protein production., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

NF-kappaB signaling plays a pivotal role in a variety of pathological conditions. Because of its central role in the overall NF-kappaB regulation, IKK-2 is a viable target for drug discovery. In order to enable structure-based design of IKK-2 inhibitors, we carried out a rational generation of IKK-2 mutants based on induced-fit docking of a selective IKK-2 inhibitor, PHA-408, into the homology model of IKK-2. One mutant we have characterized is a catalytically inactive form of IKK-2, D145A IKK-2, wherein the catalytic aspartic acid, D145 was replaced with alanine. Unlike the WT enzyme, D145A IKK-2 is devoid of kinase activity despite its ability to bind ATP with high affinity and is not phosphorylated at the T loop. In addition, this mutant binds a diverse collection of inhibitors with comparable binding affinities to WT IKK-2. Another interesting mutant we have characterized is F26A IKK-2 (F26 is an aromatic residue located at the very tip of the Gly-rich loop). Pre-incubation of F26A IKK-2 with PHA-408 revealed the role of F26 in the time-dependent binding of this inhibitor. Thus, functional characterization of these mutants provides the first evidence showing the role of a Gly-rich loop residue of a kinase in binding kinetics. These two mutants along with others that we have identified could be used to validate homology models and probe the interactions of IKK-2 with a variety of inhibitors., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)